LUCKNOW: Congress' hunt for a suitable celebrity candidate from Varanasi appears to have come to an end. Sources told TOI the party has not, even after successive meetings of its chief election committee, found a candidate to beat Modi in the battle of stature.

According to reports, the party also contacted cricketing idol Sachin Tendulkar, who is the party's Rajya Sabha member, but he refused to bite the bait.

As a result, the party is now expected to throw its weight behind local candidate Ajay Rai, who has a loyal vote bank of more than 1 lakh votes.

The last time the Congress won the Varanasi seat was in 2004, when Rajesh Kumar Mishra polled more than 2 lakh votes and swept the LS elections. In 2009, however, Mishra fell to fourth position behind BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi, with then SP candidate Ajay Rai securing the third spot.

Sources also told TOI that senior Congressman Rajiv Shukla was sent out to handpick celebrity probables-former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, among others - to take on Modi. The cricketer and Bharat Ratna recipient, however, could apparently not be talked into taking up the offer.

Senior party leaders said caste calculations in Varanasi suggest a Brahmin candidate would be a fitting answer to Modi's candidature from Varanasi. But senior Congress leader and former UP in charge Digvijaya Singh, sources told TOI, has told the party high command he would be willing to contest against Modi, if the party allowed him. Interestingly, Singh has announced a decade-long break from contesting elections in 2003, after he lost the Malhara assembly elections in MP to BJP's Uma Bharti.

Most Googled netas

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Google search trends from December 14, 2013 to March 13, 2014, reveal top-searched chief ministers in India. BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has been ranked #1 with a 53 search volume index, or the number of searches for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. The data is normalized on a scale of 0-100. (PTI photo)

Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa has been ranked second with a search volume index of 4. (PTI photo)

Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav has been ranked third with a search volume index of 3. (PTI photo)

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has been ranked fourth with a search volume index of 2. (TOI photo)